Cursed Throne: Lord of the Ocean #2 Page 4

  Her toes dug into the soft white sand on the ocean floor. The current swirled behind her. Zamir, probably. Without turning around, Ginny asked softly, “Why doesn’t it work? Why can’t I give the aether back to Kai?”

  “Because you are human,” came an unexpected voice.

  Ginny glanced around sharply, half rising to her feet as the mermaid Thaleia swam up to her.

  “Sit, please.” Thaleia’s gesture was as graceful as it was gracious. “Will you permit me to join you?”

  Ginny managed a smile. “I don’t think you have to ask my permission. This is your home, after all.”

  Thaleia shook her head. Her glance flicked around the walls of the cavern that rose on all sides of them. “This is no one’s home, not even ours. You have never seen Shulim in all its glory—”

  “Za…Kai doesn’t talk about it.” In fact, neither Zamir nor Kai spoke much about the capital city.

  Now was probably not the time to tell the merfolk that Kai had turned the Dirga Tiamatu on Shulim. There were some secrets, she reflected, that were meant to go with her to the grave. The hand behind the destruction of Shulim was certainly, definitely, absolutely one of those secrets.

  “I didn’t know you lived at Shulim,” Ginny continued. “I thought you came from one of the distant colonies.”

  “We—Badur and I—lived in the southern colony for many years, but we spent our youth in Shulim. Sometimes, we thought about returning, but there is no chance of it now.”

  “Surely it can be rebuilt?”

  “Not without aether.”

  Ginny grimaced. “I tried to give it back to Kai.”

  “You will not be able to get it out of you.”

  “Why is that?” Ginny asked.

  “Because you are human. There is something about humans and something about aether that naturally binds together.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not many do. I doubt Kai knew it when he gave the aether core to you. It’s not something he ever imagined he would do.”

  Ginny studied the thin wrinkles on Thaleia’s forehead and cheeks. Up close, an abundance of gray streaked the natural silver of her hair. Thaleia was middle-aged at best, but a hard life made her appear older. “How is it you know so much about aether?” Ginny asked.

  “I was a scholar.” Thaleia smiled, her voice lightening as if the memories were delightful. “The library of Shulim was the greatest in the world, exceeding even that of Atlantis, and the human library at Alexandria.”

  Ginny gaped. “You know about the Library of Alexandria?”

  Thaleia laughed, the sound like the ripple of the wind over water. “Of course. We are not so isolated that we know nothing. Learning was such a joy for me that I wanted to be a librarian, just so I would never have to leave the library.”

  Ginny grabbed Thaleia’s hand and squeezed it. “Oh, this is wonderful. I’m a scholar too. I study ancient civilizations—”

  “None as ancient as the Beltiamatu.” Thaleia, who had looked startled when Ginny reached for her hand, squeezed back gently.

  “I have so many questions for you.”

  “If you’re lucky, I’ll have most of the answers.”

  Ginny drew a deep breath. “There’s only one right now. Can you show me how to control aether?”

  Thaleia’s bright smile faded, and she shook her head. “I can tell you what it is. I can describe how it behaves, at least in theory, but I can’t show you anything. Only those of royal blood can carry aether within them, but not even they can command it the way you can.”

  “I’m not commanding anything.” Ginny ground her teeth in frustration. “I’m just putting it out there, and it does something. It usually accomplishes what I need—just not in any way I expect.”

  “Aether is a vortex of dark energy. Dark energy is the most abundant energy in the universe. It is in everything. Around everything. It is also the most inert.”

  “But not the vortex.”

  “No, not the vortex. No one really understands how a vortex comes about, but it accesses the dark energy in and around other things. By transferring energy, aether reshapes matter, transmuting one element to another.” Thaleia drew a deep breath. “Which makes it the most powerful force in the universe.”

  “And there’s no way to get it out of me?”

  “No.”

  Ginny growled under her breath. “Then I have to learn to live with it. Can anyone teach me?”

  “I know of no one, at least not among the Beltiamatu.”

  “I doubt the Atlanteans have a clue. The humans certainly don’t. What does that leave me?”

  Thaleia shook her head.

  She did not need to say what Ginny heard in the vaults of her mind.

  No one.

  Ginny drew a breath, trying not to think too hard about what aether had done to her body to allow her to breathe underwater. “I have to be careful around Kai. These transformations are killing him.”

  Thaleia’s head drooped, and her shoulders slumped. “Yes,” she murmured. Her voice quivered.

  Ginny cast her a curious sideways glance then asked, “That mermaid, Naia…”

  “Ah, Naia.” Thaleia chuckled, but the sound was loaded with irony. “She loves Kai.”

  “I definitely got that impression from watching her.” And feeling her give me the evil eye whenever Kai talks to me. “Za…someone told me that she’s from a good family.”

  Thaleia nodded. “Her family was one of the most prominent in Shulim. They’re all dead now, except for her.”

  “How did she survive?”

  “She wasn’t there.” Thaleia shrugged. “She had been banished two…almost three decades earlier for failing to do her duty.”

  “What duty was that?”

  “To ensnare the mer-prince.”

  Ginny’s eyes widened. “Kai? Ensnare him into what?”

  “Bearing his child, the next heir to the throne.”

  Ginny shook her head. “I’m not following this. I thought that the chosen mate is killed after the child is born.”

  “That is true.”

  “It’s a barbaric custom, did you know that?”

  “It was instituted to protect the royal family from external influences. Still, her family would have been honored to have their bloodline blended with royal blood.”

  “Even if it resulted in her dying?”

  Thaleia’s voice was cold. “You’d be surprised how many mermaids are willing to die for a chance to be the prince’s chosen—if only for a while.”

  “And Naia didn’t want to be the chosen?”

  “She did.”

  Ginny frowned. “She did? So what happened? She didn’t get pregnant?”

  “Kai refused her.”

  She blinked. “He did?” Ginny twisted around to stare at Kai. He curled on the bed of kelp, his eyes closed, his breathing finally slow and steady. Naia sat beside him, their hands close to each other’s but not touching. “He didn’t love her?”

  Thaleia, too, had turned to look at Kai. “Quite the opposite, I believe. Kai never had any half-siblings, and he grew up with only a few Beltiamatu for company. Naia, on account of her privileged position, was among them. That he loved her was obvious to everyone, and no one understood it when he rejected her.”

  Ginny frowned at the quiet, reflective note in Thaleia’s voice, as if she did understand it.

  Thaleia continued, “Her embarrassed family sent her away from Shulim. Having her at home would be a constant reminder of her public humiliation.”

  “Kai humiliated her publicly? I can’t believe that of him.”

  “According to her, they spoke in private, but nothing the royal family does is truly private. No public explanations were needed when she left the Oceans Court and never returned. She found sanctuary in the southern colony, and lived there quietly for twenty-five years, until news came that Shulim had been destroyed. She insisted on following Badur and me, and others, back to Shulim to see what othe
r news we could uncover.”

  Ginny glanced back at Kai and Naia. “She still loves him, doesn’t she?”

  “The royal family is…compelling,” Thaleia said quietly, low intensity in her voice. “Leaving aside their natural beauty and keen minds—both deliberately honed by selective breeding over thousands of years—it’s their single-minded focus on a goal, and their willingness to sacrifice everything for their beliefs, their passion. Even when they are wrong, it’s hard not to go along with them. That kind of passion can destroy empires.”

  “And rebuild them,” Ginny said firmly.

  Thaleia sighed. “Without aether, there will be no rebuilding of Shulim.”

  Ginny filtered through the alternatives, and found disturbingly few solutions. Only one leaped out at her. “Where can we find more aether?”

  Chapter 6

  “Atlantis,” Badur growled the answer before the full assembly of Beltiamatu survivors, cramped between the jagged walls of an underwater canyon. Zamir, Ginny, and Kai were in attendance too. Badur swam back and forth across the small section of open space in much the same way a man might pace a room. Despite his blindness, he knew when to turn to avoid striking the rock wall. “The only other aether core was in Atlantis. It may still be there.”

  “It is,” Zamir spoke up.

  Badur spun in the direction of his voice. “You saw it?”

  Zamir nodded, then remembered to say, “Yes.”

  “How did you find your way to Atlantis?” Badur demanded. “How do you—a human—even know of Atlantis?”

  “I will retrieve the core,” Kai spoke up.

  Zamir’s lips quirked. Kai was getting increasingly adept at cutting in at just the right time to deflect Badur’s antagonism and suspicion away from his grandfather.

  “Alone?” Naia sounded alarmed. “You can’t go alone!”

  “She’s right,” Zamir agreed. “Atlantis is still well-defended, if not by Atlanteans, then at least by the defenses they set in place thousands of years ago. It’s not a journey one can make—or survive—alone. I’ll go with you. Ginny—” Zamir turned to look at her. “Will you come?”

  She hesitated for only a moment. “Yes, I’ll come. Thaleia said something about a library at Atlantis. It might have something about aether, and controlling it.”

  Badur’s snarl, so infused with vehemence and anger, took them all by surprise. “You are going nowhere with our prince. You—the both of you—don’t belong to the sea. These are Beltiamatu affairs, and the Altanteans hunt you. If you accompany Kai, you’ll escalate the danger and risks to him a thousand-fold. We cannot lose the prince. He is all we have left.”

  “I have to go to Atlantis,” Kai said quietly. “I am the only one who can carry the aether back here, and I would not undertake this journey without Zee. Nor without Ginny.”

  “You trust them?” Badur spun so wildly that his tail struck Kai’s, but he did not retreat or retract his words. “You are prince of the Beltiamatu, and you honor the companionship of humans over your own people?”

  “I will not spend Beltiamatu lives on a quest as dangerous as this one,” Kai said firmly. “The Beltiamatu can still survive in small colonies, even if we may never regain the glory of our empire.”

  “The Atlanteans will wipe us out.”

  Kai shook his head. “The oceans are too vast for them to find all of us. The Beltiamatu will survive, one way or another.” His tone of voice accepted no alternative, but Zamir knew Kai too well. He recognized the faint echo of doubt in his grandson’s voice. Kai continued, his voice pitched low but firm. “It is my responsibility, as prince, to rebuild the empire. The aether vortex is—at best—a foolhardy solution—”

  The merfolk murmured among themselves, as if grateful to hear their prince acknowledge out loud what they knew to be true.

  “So why are you pursuing it?” Badur challenged. The insolence and anger in his tone rang so loudly that Thaleia’s eyes flared with distress, and she patted his arm to calm him.

  “Because if there’s a chance I can find and return with a vortex—”

  “You cannot!” Badur shouted. “And what will happen to us when you are killed pursuing this foolishness?”

  “You will go on as you have yesterday, when you did not know I was alive. How have things changed in the past twenty-four hours, but for the worse?”

  Zamir grimaced. Sometimes, Kai was too frank. Anything, especially the truth, could be presented in more palatable ways.

  “Look at your people!” Badur flung out his arm, sweeping across all present—a mighty race reduced to hiding in underwater canyons. “What they didn’t have yesterday was hope.” His tail flicked, closing the distance to Kai. They faced each other, and Badur spoke, so low, that only Zamir and Ginny, standing beside Kai, could hear his voice. “The Beltiamatu have always, for better or worse, put their trust in the throne.” His mouth twisted into a self-mocking smile. “Your return eroded, in an instant, the place of authority I spent decades building in the colony. Look at them. They look to you to lead them. Even without my sight, I know this. Even now, after the slaughter of hours past, they would follow you, if you asked them, to Atlantis.”

  “Atlantis is a cesspool of dark energy gone awry,” Zamir cut in. “I would not take anyone to Atlantis who is not willing to die.”

  Badur turned his sightless eyes on Zamir. “Kai is our prince. He is the only one of royal blood. There is no other. Without him, there is no nation. No empire. Just scattered, leaderless people.”

  “Scattered,” Kai agreed. “But not leaderless. You’ve led them thus far, Badur. They look to you and wait for your reactions before permitting their own.”

  An expression flicked over Badur’s face, something Zamir could not quite make out. He had never realized before how much he depended on seeing someone’s eyes to understand their emotions.

  Badur, however, did not acknowledge Kai’s compliment, if that was what it was. He drew a deep breath, but the tense muscles in his shoulders did not relax. “I will go with you.”

  “To Atlantis?” Kai’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “If you think we will let our prince, the only hope of uniting the Beltiamatu, swim off into the dangers of Atlantis, with only two humans—two hunted humans—for company, you take us for cowards and fools.” Badur lifted his chin, his manner both pugnacious and defiant. “I am coming with you.”

  “You are blind,” Kai pointed out the obvious. “In a battle or a crisis, you are a hindrance, not an asset.”

  Some emotions were so powerful that eyes were not needed to convey their vastness, their depths. Pain ripped across Badur’s features. The anguish radiating from the blind merman made Zamir catch his breath.

  “I will accompany him.” Thaleia swam forward to take Badur’s arm. “We know not to be a burden in battle. We will not be in your way.”

  “I’m coming too,” Naia insisted. Her gaze slanted to Ginny, suspicious and more than a little hostile, before returning to Kai.

  “No,” Kai’s response was immediate and absolute.

  Naia sneered, but the curl of her upper lip could not make her look any less pretty. “If you will not be prince and stay to lead your people, then you are not prince and cannot dictate where I go.”

  Ginny giggled, and Zamir concealed a smile at Kai’s confounded expression.

  Kai shook his head, the lines on his face taut and unsmiling. “I am trying to keep you safe,” he told Naia.

  “And I suppose you were trying to keep me safe when you had me dismissed from Shulim?”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “Yes.” The one-word answer was harshly given, as if torn reluctantly from him.

  Naia blinked, her surprise evident. “You rejected me.”

  “I did.”

  Zamir frowned. Naia… Now, he recalled the circumstances that had sent the Oceans Court and Shulim into an uproar more than two decades earlier. He had already been focused then on the execution of
his pact with Ereshkigal, but the social fallout had been so massive that it had been brought to his attention.

  Kai had turned seventy-five, the age of sexual maturity for a Beltiamatu. For a prince, it was even more significant. It was time for him to choose his mate, to fulfill his duty to the throne and the bloodline.

  Any mermaid would have been honored to have been chosen, especially as his first mate, to have the duty of bearing the child who would someday be the lord or the lady of the Beltiamatu.

  Naia, the prince’s childhood friend, had been the foremost contender. Her pedigree was impeccable, and it would not have been amiss to suggest that her conniving parents had repeatedly thrown her into the prince’s path for exactly this future.

  But Kai had refused all mates, including—and especially—Naia, making it clear that when the time came for him to choose a mate, it would never be her. Naia’s humiliated parents sent her away from Shulim, if only to end the pitying, mocking stares cast their way.

  Kai’s refusal to take a mate annoyed Zamir, but it was early yet. Seventy-five was young, and there would be time later for Kai to continue the royal bloodline. Zamir had dismissed the social gossip as the bored antics of the court, but his gaze now shuttled between Kai and Naia. For the first time, he wondered what exactly inspired Kai’s rejection of Naia.

  He spoke up. “Kai, if you choose to bring Beltiamatu with you, it should be warriors, not a blind merman, his mate, and a young, inexperienced mermaid—”

  Naia turned on Zamir. “I am young, but my exile forced me to grow up. I am the best forager of food in the colony, and you will need my skills with the oceans so decimated of fish.” She glanced over her shoulder to sneer at Kai. “I don’t think the prince has hunted for food for a single day in his life.”

  “I’d starve before I put you in danger—”

  “You already did!” Naia snarled. Her purple hair swirled and her hands tensed into claws. “Did you think my life in the past twenty-five years was without danger? They were the worst years of my life. For most of it, I was sick, cold, starving, and you—you alone—were the reason for my suffering. Toss out those sanctimonious platitudes. I don’t believe them, and no one has time for them.”